Wolf vs Human
by Faery Ears
Summary: San and Ashitaka argue like a married couple should. They are agruing about how to raise their first child as a wolf, or as a human? Which will they agree on? Will they ever agree? COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I do not own any partof Miyazaki's _Princess Mononoke_ in any way.

**A/N:** Ok, this is my first PM fic, so if you notice any mistakes with names or w/e please leave a review, and if you don't just leave a review anyway! Enjoy!

**-**

Twenty-four year old Ashitaka thoughtfully paced back and forth, wearing the grass down to nothing on the side of the hill.

The sun beamed down on him from way up in the cerulean shy, and Ashitaka cursed the sun's happiness. After all, what should it be so happy when he was having such a terrible morning?

He stopped pacing a moment and sighed.

Yakul, Ashitaka's faithful steed, who had been watching Ashitaka, got up from where he had been basking in the sun, and moved to Ashitaka and nuzzled his upper arm.

Ashitaka placed gentle hand on Yakul's nose and rubbed the short hair that was there. "I know, I'll talk to her."

The deer snorted.

"I will!" Ashitaka insisted. "When the right moment comes."

Yakul shook his head and walked lazily away.

Ashitaka placed his hands on his hips and stood a little taller with determination. He would talk to her today and nothing could stop him.

Down the side of the hill he began to walk, but his speed quickly turned into a sprint toward the rebuilt Tatara.

-

Ashitaka walked through the tall wooden gates of Tatara anxiously. The sooner her talked to her the better.

He jogged down the road, only to be stopped by a high-pitched choice. "Ashitakaaa! Where are you going in such a hurry?"

He turned to see Toki waving to him and smiling from high up on the gate.

"I'm on my way to see-"

Toki interrupted him. "Oh, San? How is she doing? I haven't talked to her in a while; not since you got her pregnant."

Ashitaka blushed. "She's doing well. You should visit sometime."

Toki thought for a moment. "Maybe I will."

Ashitaka smiled, "Great! Well, I've got to go now."

"All right," said Toki, "I won't keep you than." She waved.

Ashitaka went straight to where he knew he would find San. He walked to the back gate of the new Tatara and sure enough, there she was, talking to her wolf siblings. "San," he called out to her.

She turned jumped up from where she had been kneeling, and rushed over to Ashitaka. She pulled him into an embrace.

For her five months pregnant, San hardly showed it at all.

"You wolves weren't talking about me while I was gone were you?" Ashitaka asked, looking to the wolves with suspicion.

San laughed. "No, we were just talking about some names for the baby."

"Oh," said Ashitaka, hoping that the wolves weren't influencing San too much. "And what do they suggest?"

San began to run off a list of named unfamiliar to Ashitaka. "And what do they all mean?" he asked.

San stopped rambling off names and smiled. "They're all different named from the forest that mean, 'young wolf'."

Ashitaka's expression became stern and he took San by her shoulders. "San," he began, "I need to talk to you about something."

San looked confused. "What is it?"

Ashitaka looked to the wolves, who were snarling at him with dislike. "Alone, if you don't mind."

San looked to her siblings and nodded her head.

The wolves turned to leave, and Ashitaka let go of San.

"You know, Toki predicts that our child will be a girl."

Ashitaka rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I bet she does."

"So what do you need to talk to me about?" asked San, looking up at her husband curiously.

"It's about the baby," said Ashitaka.

"What about her?" asked San, not realizing that she had given the baby a gender.

"I think it would be best to raise the baby as a human."

San turned away from Ashitaka, who was holding his breath in anticipation of what she would do next.

She turned back to him. "Well of course she's going to be a human. You _are_ a human aren't you? There isn't anything that you've forgotten to tell me about yourself is there, Ashitaka?"

Ashitaka was stunned for a moment by San's response. "No, I don't mean what species the baby will be. I mean the things that we teach it. We will teach it to be human, right?"

San paused in thought again before smiling. "Human? No! We are going to teach her how to be a wolf like her mother," San said proudly.

"What?" asked Ashitaka in disbelief.

"How else do you expect her to become independent and live in the wild?" asked San.

"Our child won't be living in the wild, San. _We_ don't live in the wild, so why would we make our child?" Ashitaka asked logically.

"To become independent," replied San. "To make her first kill; to appreciate nature."

Ashitaka shook his head. "Are you crazy?" he asked. "The forest is far to dangerous to let our child roam about in it."

"No it's not," San retorted. "The Kodama will look after her, as would my wolf-siblings."

"I don't want our child to be around those wolves, he'll probably catch flees."

"You mean she," San corrected Ashitaka's slip, "my siblings do not have flees, and our baby will most definitely be in their company while she is growing up. They are my family and _your_ in-laws."

Ashitaka snorted. "He will not!"

San clenched her hands into fists. "She will too!"

"Hey San, Ashitaka. Want to join us for dinner?" asked Lady Eboshi walking by.

"No!" shouted Ashitaka.

"Yes, thank you," said San politely to spite her husband. She glared at him one last time before dashing into the forest.

Ashitaka made a grab for her wrist, but she was far too nimble for him to catch even when she was with child.

-

To be continued.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **I do not own any part of Miyazaki's _Princess Mononoke_ in any way.

**To my readers/reviewers:** Sorry I've been slacking for so long. San and Lady Eboshi have set aside their differences for the time being.

-.-.-.-.-

San and Ashitaka sat at the dinning room in the company of Lady Eboshi. They had just sat through a most uncomfortable dinner due to Ashitaka's bitter mood and San's stubborn unwillingness to speak to Ashitaka.

"So..." Lady Eboshi tried to get a conversation going. "How much longer until we welcome the little one to Tatara?"

"Well..." San started. "About..." Ashitaka interrupted. They both looked at each other and then turned away from each other, neither saying a word.

Lady Eboshi blinked. "All right then..." She poured them each a cup of hot tea, hoping that it would calm the couple's nerves. "I trust that you are going to go raise your child in the village, correct?"

"Actually-" San began, only to be interrupted once again by Ashitaka.

"Yes, we are," he said firmly. "We are going to raise him in the village and he is going to do things the human way."

San looked at her husband with a shocked expression. Who was he to talk? She was the one carrying the child!

Lady Eboshi could see that asking questions about the baby were only making matters worse, and she decided to drop the topic. She took a sip of her tea somewhat nerviously. "This sure is good tea, if I don't say so myself."

San drank her tea quickly, stood up and humbly thanked Lady Eboshi for her hospitality, but insisted that she had to go.

Once she had left the room, Lady Eboshi could help but ask, "Why the disagreement, Ashitaka?"

Ashitaka looked up from the tea cup that he was trying to hide behind. "Hm? Oh, San thinks that we are going to raise the baby as a wolf and let it live in the forest."

Lady Eboshi gasped. "Really? Isn't that dangerous?"

"Of course it is, but I can't seem to get her to change her mind," he said hopelessly.

Lady Eboshi nodded sympathetically. "Well, San _did_ get along in the forest all her life and she's all right... for the most part."

Ashitaka shook his head. "That's not the point. I just want to protect our son- I mean child. We can't have it living out there in the forest. I won't have it."

No matter what she could think of to say, Lady Eboshi realized that this was one subject that she didn't have a say in.

-.-.-.-.-

Early the next morning, San awoke in the forest next to one of her wolf siblings. She had refused to go home and have to be around Ashitaka. If he wasn't going to agree with her then she didn't need to be around him. She had her mind set, and there was no way that she was going to change it. He would just have to come around and see things her way.

They hadn't even been married for a year yet and they were already having great difficulties agreeing on things. They had hardly been ready for marriage, let alone a child. What had they been thinking?

San wasn't sure, but she was starting to see that she should have listened to her siblings when they warned her about committing to a relationship with a human.

She sat up and put a hand gently on her belly. Too late to turn back now.

Her other wolf sibling appeared from the depths of the forest with a rabbit in it's mouth, and placed the limp animal down in front of San.

She held up her hand. "I'm not hungry."

The wolf snarled at the rejection of the food, knowing that San was lying.

San ignored the wolf and got up, preparing herself for when she would face Ashitaka again after not having come home all night, but really, she had gone home. The forest was her home; it was Ashitaka who failed to realize that.

-.-.-.-.-

Ashitaka awoke early and peeked out the window and into the forest every few minutes, anxiously waiting for San to return, hoping that she hadn't run away for good. It hadn't been the first time that she had left without telling him.

He poked his head out the window again to see San saying goodbye to her siblings. He rushed to the doorway and waited for her to come in.

San walked into the room, not even looking up at Ashitaka, or saying so much as a 'hello' or 'good morning' as she passed him.

"Where were you?" he asked her, even though he knew exactly where she had been.

"Home," she replied simply.

"That's not your home anymore, San. This is your home now, here in Tatara with me and all the other humans," he said, as if he were explaining it to her for the first time. "No matter how much you wish it away, you are a human too, San, and you cannot change what you, or the baby, are."

"Why not?" San asked stubbornly.

"Because... that's just the way it works," Ashitaka replied angrily.

San didn't have anything to say to that.

Ashitaka went up to San and put his arms around her. "Listen, I _love_ you, but we have to agree on a way to raise our child."

San stayed silent and still, limp in Ashitaka's arms.

"Do you think that we can make an adult decision on this?" he asked, and waited patiently for her reply.

She slowly put her arms around Ashitaka. "We have no choice."

-.-.-.-.-

Four months passed, and San and Ashitaka had come much closer to agreeing on how to raise their child. Ashitaka agreed to let San teach him how to hunt in the forest as long as he didn't have to sleep in the forest _every_ night, and San agreed to let Ashitaka educate her like a human so long as she wouldn't have to work in Tatara for a living.

With everything basically settled between the two, Ashitaka went about his daily business with San close by, as the baby was expected to be born any day, and the one thing that he absolutely would not stand for was the baby being born in the forest.

"So, Ashitaka..." Toki began. "What are you and San going to name the baby?"

"Well, San is so sure that he's going to be a girl that we agreed that if he is a girl, she will name him Tala."

"That's nice, how come?" asked Toki.

"It means 'wolf'," Ashitaka explained.

"Oh." Toki gave a knowing smile. "And if the baby's a boy?"

"Then I get to name him," said Ahitaka proudly.

"And what are you going to name him, Ashitaka?"

"Taro."

"Well, isn't that original?" asked Toki sarcastically.

Ashitaka smiled.

San moved closer to Toki and her husband. "Ashitaka!"

He moved to San's side quickly. "What is it?" he panicked. "What's wrong?"

"The baby's coming."

-.-.-.-.-

To be continued.

**A/N:** Taro means eldest son. Please leave reviews. Third and final part coming soon!


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: **I do not own any part of Miyazaki's _Princess Mononoke_ in any way.

**To my readers/reviewers:** The final chapter is here! YAY! What you've all been waiting for! Thanks for all of your reviews and comments! Please review if you haven't yet (or if you have), this is my first fic EVER to be finished!

-.-.-.-.-

Toki and Ashitaka quickly helped San into the house of an offering Tatara woman nearby.

San had one hand on her belly and one reaching out behind her as she was helped to the ground, as there was no bed within the house. She grabbed out for Ashitaka's hand.

"We need a doctor or something," Ashitaka panicked.

"Nonsense," Toki replied. "I've delivered loads of babies, and they're all just fine. Don't you worry about a thing."

This made Ashitaka feel a little more secure. He bent down to San's level. "This is it, we're finally going to be parents."

San smiled up at her husband, soon to be father of her child.

-.-.-.-.-

Half an hour later, Ashitaka was quickly becoming more and more anxious. "Is he here yet?" he repeatedly asked Toki.

She shook her head. "Not yet."

"Why is it taking so long?" he asked.

"The baby isn't quite ready to say 'hi' yet. San's just in labour. It could still be hours before she actually gives birth." Toki smiled widely.

"Oh," said Ashitaka, making himself more comfortable on the floor.

-.-.-.-.-

Several hours later a shrill cry from such a tiny child was let out.

"It's a boy!" Toki exclaimed, wrapping the child in some cloth. She placed the baby into San's arms, so that she and Ashitaka could see their newborn son.

San looked up at Ashitaka and smiled at him, and he put his arm around her and kissed her forehead softly.

"So I guess the baby's name will be Taro?" Toki assumed, raising an eyebrow in question.

"That's right," Ashitaka answered.

San's smile faded. "What do you mean 'that's right'? We are going to call him Hohnihohkaiyohos."

"Hohnihohkai- what?" asked Toki and Ashitaka together.

"-Yohos," San finished for them. I was talking with my wolf siblings the other morning and they insisted that if the baby was a boy that I would name him Hohnihohkaiyohos." She smiled at the two people who were still confused over the pronunciation of the name. "What's the matter?"

"You said that you would let _me _choose the name if the baby was a boy, remember?" asked Ashitaka. "You said I could because you were so sure that he would be a girl and you were going to name him Tala."

"Don't be ridiculous," San laughed. "Tala for a boy sounds silly! I said it was Hohnihohkai-"

"I know, I know," Ashitaka interrupted, " I heard you the first three times, but that's not the point. You said that-"

"You could name the baby, I know, but I've changed my mind," said San, as if that excuse was all she needed to make Ashitaka understand that she had chosen the name for their son.

Ashitaka sat there on the floor with his mouth hanging open. "You can't change your mind!"

"Sure I can... and I did."

Toki looked back and forth between the feuding couple. "Now, now you two. I'm sure that there is an easier way to solve this problem than arguing about it."

"You know what, Toki? You're right," agreed San. "It would be silly of me to name the baby Hohnihohkaiyohos..."

Ashitaka sighed with relief. Now he could have his say in at least _one _thing and name the baby-

"Neeheeoeewootis!" San exclaimed.

Toki scrunched up her face.

Ashitaka stood up. "All right, that's where I draw the line. We are NOT naming our son Knee-owie-what's-it!"

"Well then, as far as I'm concerned you don't have a son." San looked to the child. "Isn't that right Neeheeoeewootis? I'm gonna raise you all by myself and you will play with the wolves, and sleep under the stars, and..."

Ashitaka's jaw hit the ground. "What?"

"You heard me," said San.

"No, San, I didn't mean- It's just that- I only wanted- FINE! We'll call the baby whatever you want!" Ashitaka gave in. "But please! Let him sleep indoors on a bed, and away from the olves and forest animals."

San smiled successfully. "Thank you... but Hohnihohkaiyohos is still going to learn how to hunt like a real wolf, isn't that right Hohni?"

Ashitaka's slouched his shoulders in defeat. "Hohni it is... at least the other children at school might not make fun of him for that name..." There was silence for a moment. "Oh, who am I kidding?" Ashitaka burst out dramatically. "They're gonna tease him to no end!"

"Don't worry, Ashitaka," San comforted. "He won't be teased by the other children because he isn't going to go to school."

Ashitaka cut the dramatics at once. "What do you mean? Of course he's going to go to school. He certainly won't learn anything about being a human from you. He needs to be with his own kind."

"Exactly, the wolves!"

"No, San, not the wolves, the humans!"

"Wolves!" San retorted.

"Humans!"

Toki shook her head. There really wasn't any point in trying to help them. She strolled out of the house with the Tatara woman that had lent it to them, and the voices of Ashitaka and San became nothing more than background noise behind them.

"Wolves!"

"Humans!"

"Wolves!"

And so began the same argument that had occurred before, and would probably occur in the future so long as San and Ashitaka were together. But that is what happens when a wolf and a human decide to have children.

-.-.-.-.-

The End.

**A/N:** Hohnihohkaiyohos and Neeheeoeewootis both mean "high backed wolf". It was the most outrageous name that I could find meaning wolf. Thanks for reading!


End file.
